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The Truth According to Jean · The Steve Harvey Morning Show

0:10
Speaker 1: Warning. The following show includes discussion of escorts, drugs, septagenarian
0:16
Speaker 1: Tinder eclipses, star powered therapy, and Donald Trump's former former
0:21
Speaker 1: former lawyer. For listeners with Victorian sensibilities, please keep a
0:26
Speaker 1: fan and smelling salts nearby.
0:34
Speaker 2: So I guess my biggest question is am I ever
0:38
Speaker 2: going to have sex with somebody again?
0:47
Speaker 3: We're sitting in Jean Lebec's third floor apartment right off
0:50
Speaker 3: the ninety third Street stop in Bay Ridge. Jean is
0:53
Speaker 3: a former teacher, just like my mom, roughly the same age,
0:57
Speaker 3: seventy four, but Jean's a New York four. She's got
1:01
Speaker 3: that city girl edge.
1:04
Speaker 2: My name is Jean Anne Lebec, and I am a storyteller.
1:09
Speaker 3: The sex question, it's big for Jean because she was
1:14
Speaker 3: married for forty one years and she expected to stay
1:17
Speaker 3: married forever. But right before the city went into lockdown,
1:20
Speaker 3: her marriage dissolved, and it's taken her about three years
1:23
Speaker 3: to get to this point.
1:25
Speaker 2: The truth is, I don't want to marry anything. I'm
1:27
Speaker 2: not looking for that, and I don't want to live
1:29
Speaker 2: with anybody. I'm not looking for that.
1:31
Speaker 3: But she is craving something. It's some form of intimacy.
1:37
Speaker 4: Okay.
1:37
Speaker 2: So my daughter is my biggest support and fan, and
1:40
Speaker 2: when I've told her these stories about you know, guys
1:43
Speaker 2: who just really want to sex text to they don't
1:46
Speaker 2: really want to go further than that.
1:47
Speaker 4: All the weird men that I have had a date with.
1:51
Speaker 2: Just okay, Now here's where we're at right now. I
1:55
Speaker 2: think what you need to do is call up in
1:57
Speaker 2: court service.
2:05
Speaker 3: That's right. It's early on a Saturday morning. I am
2:09
Speaker 3: barely awake, haven't even had my cup of coffee, and
2:13
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure I'm hearing her right, Like, is this
2:17
Speaker 3: sweet seventy four year old woman really asking permission to
2:22
Speaker 3: hire somebody?
2:24
Speaker 5: You're there, and it's a very clear cut relationship, you know,
2:29
Speaker 5: hire them for four hours.
2:33
Speaker 3: I don't know if an astrologer can help with that.
2:36
Speaker 3: I don't know if any astrologer has ever been asked
2:38
Speaker 3: whether it's the right time to hire an escort.
2:42
Speaker 6: But we're about to find out.
2:46
Speaker 3: From Kaleidoscope and iHeart Podcast, I'm Monga's Shatika thear Welcome
2:52
Speaker 3: to Skyline Drive Chapter one, pound Cake and Chemo. So
3:35
Speaker 3: let's talk a second about Jean's question and questions like these. Well,
3:40
Speaker 3: I ever have a partner that feels safe and secure.
3:44
Speaker 3: Why do scorpios get such a bad wrap.
3:47
Speaker 7: I'm kind of curious how many dogs I will have
3:50
Speaker 7: in my life?
3:51
Speaker 2: Is it insane to consider trying to be a stand
3:54
Speaker 2: up comedian as.
3:55
Speaker 7: A man who is rapidly balding?
3:58
Speaker 3: Will any of my hair ever grow back? That's what
4:01
Speaker 3: the show was supposed to be, finding people with questions
4:04
Speaker 3: I'd never think to ask, pairing them with an astrologer,
4:08
Speaker 3: then generally having a good time. And I was going
4:11
Speaker 3: to take this anthropological view of it all like stand back,
4:15
Speaker 3: watch without judgment, try to understand and enjoy. But just
4:20
Speaker 3: as our production was about to get off the ground,
4:22
Speaker 3: I traveled to Queen's to get a reading from a
4:24
Speaker 3: random astrologer. And that astrologer he warned me that my
4:28
Speaker 3: dad's health would soon take a drastic turn. Within twenty minutes,
4:32
Speaker 3: my dad had emailed me that the cancer had spread
4:35
Speaker 3: through his liver. So now a few days later, I'm
4:40
Speaker 3: in Kanye's, Georgia. Kanye's is mostly famous for being a
4:51
Speaker 3: speed trap on the road between Atlanta and Athens, and
4:55
Speaker 3: my parents settled here because my dad took a job
4:57
Speaker 3: down the road a few years back, but little else
5:00
Speaker 3: that would have drawn them here, Like there are strip
5:03
Speaker 3: malls and waffle houses, banks, targets, and then these quiet
5:07
Speaker 3: winding roads that veer off it with names like Christian Circle.
5:11
Speaker 3: The doctor's office is tucked away on one of these
5:13
Speaker 3: winding roads, and we're waiting for the doctor in a
5:16
Speaker 3: little exam room. It's actually the way my dad wants it.
5:19
Speaker 3: All of us here, my mom, sister, me, and I'm
5:24
Speaker 3: a little surprised when the doctor walks in and he's Indian.
5:28
Speaker 8: So the pathology report still says preliminary.
5:33
Speaker 3: I didn't know that they had more of us out
5:35
Speaker 3: in conyers. I like him immediately. He seems to really
5:39
Speaker 3: know and care about my dad, and he's concerned for
5:42
Speaker 3: us too, But when he starts, it's clear the news
5:46
Speaker 3: isn't good.
5:48
Speaker 7: Show that.
5:49
Speaker 9: Then Dialima was started by small tumors, numerous tumors, Bawns.
5:56
Speaker 3: It turns out it's an aggressive small self cancer. It's
6:00
Speaker 3: going to need an aggressive response.
6:01
Speaker 8: The painting is okay, but your disease is behaving way
6:05
Speaker 8: too press Now it's wonderful.
6:08
Speaker 3: I've turned on my voice recorder, not for podcasting, but
6:12
Speaker 3: because I'm feeling lightheaded. Uneasy about how much of this
6:15
Speaker 3: information I'll retain, and so far it sounds like the
6:20
Speaker 3: chemo can only do so much.
6:22
Speaker 9: Why did I say it's not that great news? Because
6:24
Speaker 9: small SI lung cancer is notorious not to stay in
6:27
Speaker 9: control with chemotherapy. It goes away, but it comes right back.
6:32
Speaker 9: So not a good diagnosis at all, but very treatable
6:37
Speaker 9: in its current situation.
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Speaker 3: This whole thing is basically cancer. Whack them all. You
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Speaker 3: can bat the cancer back, cheer a little, and then
6:45
Speaker 3: start again until time runs out. The only time I
6:49
Speaker 3: smile is when my dad asks timidly, oh, yes.
6:54
Speaker 4: I've heard that medical Mario and I can help.
6:58
Speaker 3: With And I think I remember my friend Howard when
7:02
Speaker 3: his dad got cancer. Howard got him a pound cake
7:05
Speaker 3: loaded with THHC and they spent the night laughing as
7:08
Speaker 3: his dad shared memories along with these ridiculous life goals,
7:13
Speaker 3: like how his one regret as a young man in
7:15
Speaker 3: China was that he'd never taken a shit on the
7:18
Speaker 3: doorstep of the French embassy. Anyway, I daydreamed a little
7:23
Speaker 3: about sourcing some edibles and playing my dad's favorite records
7:26
Speaker 3: as we chat through the night before I hear this you.
7:31
Speaker 8: Really don't want tellily parents to be dealing with metastatic
7:35
Speaker 8: cancer three hundred miles away. It's just not invariably, no
7:39
Speaker 8: matter how smold the treatment, as Lonely martins.
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Speaker 3: In the best case scenario, we'll get three to four
7:51
Speaker 3: more years with my dad. That's if the treatment takes.
7:55
Speaker 3: It's something to hope for. But it's more likely we'll
7:58
Speaker 3: get three to four months. The thing is, there's no
8:01
Speaker 3: time to waste. A nurse wheels my dad to a
8:04
Speaker 3: different wing to begin the chemo immediately. My mom's trying
8:07
Speaker 3: to be brave, but she's still dazed. I tug at
8:10
Speaker 3: her arm and hold it as we walk to the car.
8:14
Speaker 3: Everything is daunting, but it also feels manageable. So instead
8:18
Speaker 3: of worrying, I focus on our wish list. My dad
8:23
Speaker 3: still speaks some Portuguese from his childhood in Goa, and
8:26
Speaker 3: I know he wants to see Lisbon. I know he
8:29
Speaker 3: wants to see his grandkids more. He wants to see
8:32
Speaker 3: my sister get married. So I'm thinking, what can I do?
8:35
Speaker 3: What money do we need? How can I move my
8:38
Speaker 3: schedule around? Four months is not a lot of time,
8:44
Speaker 3: but I'm going to make it feel like enough Chapter two,
9:03
Speaker 3: Secrets and Lies.
9:07
Speaker 4: I lived in a family with a lot of secrets.
9:10
Speaker 3: Secrets are the thing that shaped Jean, and I have
9:12
Speaker 3: a feeling, it's what's driven her to tell these beautiful,
9:15
Speaker 3: unvarnished stories about herself. Inside her place, past the entry
9:21
Speaker 3: and the kitchen doorway and the hallway lined with photos,
9:24
Speaker 3: there's a living room filled with vintage furniture stuff you'd
9:28
Speaker 3: cover it from your favorite thrift store. Jane tells me
9:33
Speaker 3: to sit anywhere, make myself comfortable, and so I do,
9:36
Speaker 3: first on this bright, beautiful sofa, and then on an
9:40
Speaker 3: ottoman just a little closer, doer.
9:43
Speaker 2: I grew up right here in Brooklyn, matt and bay Ridge,
9:46
Speaker 2: Button Crown Hearts, which is now a groovy, groovy place
9:48
Speaker 2: to live, But during those days it was a hard
9:52
Speaker 2: working Irish Catholic neighborhood and we were the only Jewish families.
9:58
Speaker 3: Kids playing marbles, why nickel, hanging out on studs, running
10:02
Speaker 3: around the neighborhood until the lamp posts flicker and you
10:04
Speaker 3: just know it's time to raise home. It all sounds
10:08
Speaker 3: so idyllic, but her childhood was also cloaked in something
10:11
Speaker 3: darker because of her parents' political leanings.
10:14
Speaker 2: We lived this kind of life of secrets and lives.
10:17
Speaker 2: They couldn't tell anybody they were American Communists. They couldn't
10:20
Speaker 2: tell anybody they knew. Julison Ethel Rosenberg.
10:24
Speaker 7: Run for me, oh refresher on. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
10:33
Speaker 3: Julius Rosenberg a Taurus and Ethel Rosenberg a Libra, met
10:38
Speaker 3: and fell in love at the Young Communist League.
10:41
Speaker 7: When Torres and libre come together in a love affair,
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Speaker 7: it can be the unification of two halves of a whole.
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Speaker 3: Julius had a steady job working for the Army Signal
10:52
Speaker 3: Corps as an engineer, but he was fired for being a.
10:56
Speaker 7: Socialist Communism What is it?
11:02
Speaker 3: Who are the apostles of a system that attempts to
11:04
Speaker 3: destroy the American way of life? In the nineteen forties
11:09
Speaker 3: and fifties, a communist panic swept across America, set off
11:13
Speaker 3: by a Scorpio named Senator Joseph McCarthy. McCarthy was known
11:17
Speaker 3: for his wild and sensational attacks.
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Speaker 10: The Scorpio zodiac sign concerns itself with beginnings and endings
11:25
Speaker 10: and is unafraid of either. They also travel in a
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Speaker 10: world that is black and white and has little use
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Speaker 10: for gray.
11:33
Speaker 3: At the time, Hollywood directors, prominent politicians, and government insiders
11:37
Speaker 3: were terrified for their lives and careers. In nineteen fifty,
11:41
Speaker 3: the couple was put on trial for passing atomic secrets
11:44
Speaker 3: to the Soviets. The Rosenbergs claimed innocence, but they still
11:48
Speaker 3: got the electric chair. The man who prosecuted them, a
11:52
Speaker 3: twenty three year old pisces named Roy Kohane. One witness
11:56
Speaker 3: from the trial, tried to take back his testimony. He
11:59
Speaker 3: said the reason he lied on the stand was because
12:02
Speaker 3: con had threatened to lock up his wife and make
12:04
Speaker 3: life hell for his family.
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Speaker 7: Many people associate pisces with dreams and secrets. As a
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Speaker 7: mutable sign.
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Speaker 10: ICs holds a damptist, fluid and sheep shifting quality.
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Speaker 3: Anyway, back to Gene, it makes sense that her family
12:23
Speaker 3: hid the fact that they were close with the Rosenbergs,
12:25
Speaker 3: but that wasn't the only secret they were hiding.
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Speaker 2: My sister's gay Being gay during those times was really
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Speaker 2: a horrifying thing. And I remember when she told me
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Speaker 2: she was gay, I thought this was the greatest thing
12:39
Speaker 2: I ever heard, and she was like, you can I
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Speaker 2: tell us so nobody can know about.
12:44
Speaker 3: This like being Communist, being Jewish, being gay was just
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Speaker 3: another thing she couldn't talk about. As she's telling me
12:52
Speaker 3: about her past, it makes more sense why Jean's welcomed
12:54
Speaker 3: me in why she's agreed to talk. The thing is,
12:59
Speaker 3: Gene is a total romantic.
13:02
Speaker 2: One of my favorite stories that I told was the
13:06
Speaker 2: time I had my first orgasm. I had been married,
13:09
Speaker 2: I had a baby, and still didn't know my own body.
13:13
Speaker 3: It's the nineteen seventies and Geine is in her twenties,
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Speaker 3: a single mom with a kid. She had briefly been
13:18
Speaker 3: married to her high school sweetheart, and now she's working
13:20
Speaker 3: at this daycare center where she has this colleague named Mona,
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Speaker 3: and they are a lot alike. They're both putting themselves
13:27
Speaker 3: through school in the evenings. They both have little girls
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Speaker 3: that are the same age.
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Speaker 2: We formed this friendship with each other, and then one
13:35
Speaker 2: night we went to see this movie and we're sitting
13:37
Speaker 2: in the car and she looks at me and says,
13:40
Speaker 2: you know, I really feel like kissing you.
13:43
Speaker 4: I said, so kiss.
13:46
Speaker 3: That kiss was like fireworks.
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Speaker 4: I mean, Mona and I had been intimate, but I
13:54
Speaker 4: never had an orgasm.
13:56
Speaker 2: After this orgasm, she put on candles and everything, and
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Speaker 2: she looked at me and said, you know, sweetie, you
14:03
Speaker 2: could do this anytime you want.
14:05
Speaker 4: I mean, the whole idea of that kind of power.
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Speaker 11: And so.
14:10
Speaker 4: I begin to be kind of a crazy masturbator, you know.
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Speaker 12: I would like go to my job at the daycare center,
14:15
Speaker 12: and it was lunchtime, NiFe went back, and so it
14:20
Speaker 12: was this whole description of just feeling giddy with this
14:24
Speaker 12: kind of new fountain me.
14:27
Speaker 3: Mona would move away not long after leaving the city,
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Speaker 3: but it wasn't long before Jeane would fall in love again.
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Speaker 3: In fact, in some ways, her next love would hit
14:36
Speaker 3: her even harder. Here's a story she told at the Moth.
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Speaker 2: It's assembly day and I am so nervous. My class
14:43
Speaker 2: is putting on a play for the entire school, and
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Speaker 2: I'm walking down the auditorium the center aisle carrying all
14:49
Speaker 2: these props. And takes my hand to help me navigate
14:53
Speaker 2: up the stage steps, and my hand melts into his,
14:58
Speaker 2: and his hand melts into mine. Our fingers linger, never
15:02
Speaker 2: wanting to let go. And as Miss.
15:05
Speaker 4: Hall crosses the stage to go to.
15:07
Speaker 2: The piano, and kids are getting their assembly seats, and
15:10
Speaker 2: the ring is beating against the window.
15:12
Speaker 4: We fall madly in.
15:13
Speaker 3: Love Geane and that teacher I don't want. They get married,
15:18
Speaker 3: raise their daughter together, and then a son too. They
15:22
Speaker 3: become grandparents together, and then one morning, forty one years later.
15:27
Speaker 4: Over coffee, said I'm leaving.
15:30
Speaker 3: Her husband came clean about another woman he'd been seeing,
15:34
Speaker 3: But it wasn't long before Jean realized there were more.
15:37
Speaker 2: He was having copious amounts of affairs. It was almost
15:41
Speaker 2: like a house of cards fell down. He's an expert
15:44
Speaker 2: con man. He swept me off my feet. It was
15:47
Speaker 2: almost like that love that you know you think you're
15:50
Speaker 2: never ever going to find again, and then it all
15:52
Speaker 2: just kind of crash and I had to kind of
15:54
Speaker 2: weed through the betrayal.
15:56
Speaker 3: It didn't take much detective work for Gane to realize
15:58
Speaker 3: he'd been cheating since the start of their relationship, with friends, colleagues,
16:02
Speaker 3: random women along the way. Jean was heartbroken. She still is,
16:07
Speaker 3: and it's tainted the way she looks at the.
16:09
Speaker 2: Past, because I see a happy family, but I think,
16:14
Speaker 2: was he involved with this woman then?
16:16
Speaker 4: Or who is he involved with?
16:17
Speaker 3: Then? Jeane is done grieving. She no longer wants to
16:21
Speaker 3: look backwards.
16:23
Speaker 4: What is this next?
16:24
Speaker 2: Journey about for myself because I feel like I'm at
16:27
Speaker 2: the brink of something.
16:28
Speaker 4: I just don't know what the break is. I don't
16:30
Speaker 4: know what something is.
16:32
Speaker 3: The truth is, Jean does not believe in astrology. She's
16:35
Speaker 3: had opportunities before to have her chart read, but she's
16:38
Speaker 3: never really seen the point.
16:40
Speaker 2: You know, my sister was into astrology, but you know,
16:43
Speaker 2: we all thought it was bullshit, you know, and I
16:45
Speaker 2: always thought, like, please have a glass of wine, relax,
16:49
Speaker 2: it's more meaningful than this.
16:51
Speaker 3: But that was then Today, at seventy four, Jean recognizes
16:55
Speaker 3: how precious her time is over and over. She tells me,
16:59
Speaker 3: I've got ten years, ten good years to drink in
17:03
Speaker 3: all the richness of life already.
17:06
Speaker 1: Told you lying even down.
17:09
Speaker 3: And if there's any chance that astrology can unlock that secret,
17:13
Speaker 3: she's open to it. Oh, and there's still the matter
17:18
Speaker 3: of the escorts. More on that after the break. Chapter three.
17:35
Speaker 3: Wheels that Work.
17:38
Speaker 13: You know, I don't think humans hang on two things
17:40
Speaker 13: that don't work, Like the wheel is awesome, like we
17:43
Speaker 13: still use it. We don't say, oh, this wheel is
17:46
Speaker 13: out of date, Like no, it's functional, right. So that's
17:49
Speaker 13: the same thing with astrology, Like we don't study this
17:51
Speaker 13: stuff because it doesn't work.
17:59
Speaker 3: Over the summer, my friends and I started the search
18:01
Speaker 3: for a house astrologer for this show. We thought hard
18:04
Speaker 3: about using doctor Kamar, but I was reluctant. Looking back,
18:08
Speaker 3: it's obvious why doctor Kamar's predictions had set off a
18:12
Speaker 3: chain of events that I just needed to compartmentalize away
18:15
Speaker 3: from this show. I needed a different experience, and Janelle
18:20
Speaker 3: Belgrave is definitely that. She is sunny and relentlessly encouraging,
18:25
Speaker 3: and the first time I chatted with her, I was
18:28
Speaker 3: smiling the whole time, like I love the way she
18:31
Speaker 3: peppered the conversation with this secret knowledge of just how
18:35
Speaker 3: pervasive astrology is.
18:37
Speaker 13: If you don't think there are multi billionaires using astrology
18:40
Speaker 13: to get ahead, let me tell you something.
18:42
Speaker 3: They're out there. I mean, that's what my whole show
18:44
Speaker 3: was supposed to peek into, but it was actually something
18:48
Speaker 3: more than that. As my little team of skeptics here
18:51
Speaker 3: talked about the production, we decided that using Janelle almost
18:54
Speaker 3: seemed faded. Like when Mary Amitra set out to find
18:58
Speaker 3: an astrologer for the show, they independently made lists and somehow,
19:02
Speaker 3: not only did they both find Janelle, but they both
19:05
Speaker 3: had her as their top choice, so we chalked it
19:07
Speaker 3: up to destiny and rolled with it. Janelle's real New
19:11
Speaker 3: York too, She's from Queen's and her parents are immigrants
19:15
Speaker 3: from Panama. Janelle's doesn't sugarcoat things, so when I asked
19:31
Speaker 3: her about the birthdate for the show and the show's timing, well,
19:36
Speaker 3: let's just say she was less optimistic than doctor Kamar,
19:39
Speaker 3: who told me this show was going to be a
19:41
Speaker 3: mega hit.
19:42
Speaker 14: So you guys said that it was May sixteenth, nine
19:46
Speaker 14: thirty nine am in Brooklyn.
19:47
Speaker 7: New York.
19:48
Speaker 14: Correct, Yeah, yeah, right, okay, right, okay, So you guys
19:55
Speaker 14: are a Torus sun, a cancer rising moon in Sagittarius.
20:01
Speaker 14: You guys planned this right under an eclipse, which is
20:04
Speaker 14: really interesting, not necessarily bad, but eclipse energy can be
20:09
Speaker 14: very volatile, right.
20:11
Speaker 3: I guess I've got a temper my expectations. But even
20:15
Speaker 3: when Janelle's prepping you for a turbulent time ahead, I
20:19
Speaker 3: like how she's still encouraging.
20:21
Speaker 13: You're starting under a lot of retrogrades, and that's okay,
20:24
Speaker 13: but you just have to know that you can have
20:26
Speaker 13: to be patient use that to your benefit.
20:30
Speaker 3: Now, this isn't aside. But last year I started giving
20:34
Speaker 3: monsterra plants away to people who have been going through
20:37
Speaker 3: hard things. It is a super instagrammable plant, but that's
20:41
Speaker 3: not why I like it. The monster is unusual. If
20:46
Speaker 3: left in the dark, exhibit something called negative phototropism, where
20:50
Speaker 3: all the new stems will actually grow into the darkness.
20:55
Speaker 3: It's a clever trick. In the jungle, darkness signals the
20:58
Speaker 3: presence of a larger tree, so the monster trusts that
21:01
Speaker 3: it can lean into the shadows and pool all of
21:04
Speaker 3: its energy into climbing that trunk because it believes sunlight
21:08
Speaker 3: will come. I like that reminder because I've needed that reminder.
21:15
Speaker 3: And that's what's so great about Janelle. The beauty She's
21:17
Speaker 3: found in reminding people that hope still exists.
21:22
Speaker 13: There's always hope in the darkest moments of our life.
21:26
Speaker 13: And when you look back and say, yeah, there was
21:27
Speaker 13: that some person that came to me that day and
21:29
Speaker 13: said something, and that was the thing I needed to
21:31
Speaker 13: get to the next day, and that next day was miraculous.
21:35
Speaker 3: There's a joy in pairing up a couple you have
21:37
Speaker 3: a good feeling about. Gene is so clearly yearning and
21:41
Speaker 3: I wanted to witness what magic might come out when
21:44
Speaker 3: you put Jeanne and Janelle and all their stars and
21:48
Speaker 3: their stories in a room together. Chapter four. You don't
22:09
Speaker 3: want to waste a minute. It's months before I see
22:13
Speaker 3: Gene again. We are sitting in our apartment. This time
22:16
Speaker 3: it's my producer, Mitra and me, and we've set up
22:19
Speaker 3: a consult with Janelle. But twenty minutes in, everything is
22:23
Speaker 3: going wrong. Sound Waves are flashing across the laptop, but
22:27
Speaker 3: apparently it hasn't been taping. Worse, the backup recorder got jammed,
22:32
Speaker 3: and then our batteries died. It's like this taping is jens.
22:36
Speaker 3: Of course, Janelle doesn't miss a beat. She makes a
22:39
Speaker 3: crack about eclipses and the universe, showing us just how
22:42
Speaker 3: real astrology is, and she reminds us that if we've
22:46
Speaker 3: tried this a few days from now, everything would have
22:48
Speaker 3: gone smoothly. We all laugh, but we try again.
22:53
Speaker 14: Okay, so where should we start?
22:56
Speaker 3: In my head, I'm screaming escorts. We've got to talk
22:59
Speaker 3: about courts. If you listen to the tape from fifteen
23:02
Speaker 3: minutes ago, it is all static, but what you would
23:07
Speaker 3: have heard? What I wish we still had was the
23:10
Speaker 3: discussion and where it began. Before Jean had even said
23:14
Speaker 3: the word escort, Janelle basically said, Jeane, your chart is
23:18
Speaker 3: telling me that you're meant to go enjoy yourself. The
23:21
Speaker 3: universe wants you to enjoy yourself. So go on dates,
23:24
Speaker 3: go on hikes, go have sex, Go do the things
23:28
Speaker 3: that feel fun. But I don't have that tape because
23:34
Speaker 3: I started this show in an eclipse, and somehow it's
23:38
Speaker 3: easier to tell myself that to make that the excuse
23:42
Speaker 3: than to stop Gene from taking the conversation in the
23:45
Speaker 3: direction she needs it to go.
23:50
Speaker 5: I have been feeling like I'm on the edge of something,
23:52
Speaker 5: but I don't know what that looks like.
23:54
Speaker 14: Huh, I gotcha, Okay, Sash.
23:57
Speaker 13: She wanted to take you back to your last new
23:59
Speaker 13: moon that you had, though basically this is just to
24:02
Speaker 13: show you that there's no such thing as like linear
24:04
Speaker 13: time in astrology. So when we are at a new
24:07
Speaker 13: moon phase in our life, it's when we're starting a
24:10
Speaker 13: brand new chapter. We've ended one chapter. Okay, So back
24:14
Speaker 13: in twenty eleven, April twenty eleven, you had a new
24:18
Speaker 13: moon happen in your progressed chart at nineteen.
24:21
Speaker 14: Degrees of aris. So if you can think back to
24:24
Speaker 14: what was happening in your life in twenty eleven, I.
24:26
Speaker 15: Can tell you I know exactly what was happening because
24:28
Speaker 15: that was so I can't believe you just said that.
24:30
Speaker 11: I'm blown away.
24:32
Speaker 14: Really Okay, hold that thought, don't game. Don't give it
24:34
Speaker 14: away just yet. So I want us to kind of
24:36
Speaker 14: flow through it. So back then you plant it seas right,
24:39
Speaker 14: then you're going to track the moon.
24:40
Speaker 3: As she continues, Janelle traces her cursor over the flow
24:43
Speaker 3: of the moon through Jane's sign, and she shows her
24:46
Speaker 3: how the moon is moved with her over the years.
24:49
Speaker 14: So around probably, I would say twenty sixteen or so
24:54
Speaker 14: is when things probably got a little bit rocky, especially
24:57
Speaker 14: when it came to marriage. Oh yeah, so September of
25:01
Speaker 14: twenty nineteen maybe would have been a time where things
25:04
Speaker 14: might have got a little bit tough.
25:05
Speaker 11: Oh my god, yeah, I have the chills. I do
25:11
Speaker 11: have the chills.
25:12
Speaker 13: To show you how astrology works, to show you the timing.
25:15
Speaker 13: So we're seeing this moon hit with Pluto, right, so
25:19
Speaker 13: possibly endings, deaths, changes, transformations, endings, endings.
25:24
Speaker 3: The scene reminds me of what my friend Pete the
25:27
Speaker 3: rock star astrologer told me this concept of Joe TISHMATI
25:32
Speaker 3: what you're going for in a great reading, like that
25:34
Speaker 3: shared connection between astrologer and the person being read, passing
25:38
Speaker 3: the light of awareness.
25:41
Speaker 11: I'm really sitting here completely overwhelmed.
25:44
Speaker 15: I have to tell you because when you, let's say
25:46
Speaker 15: a specific thing like September, you know, twenty nineteen, September
25:51
Speaker 15: twenty fifth, twenty nineteen, looked me in the face and said, bye.
25:56
Speaker 11: Bye, I'm leaving you for another woman. And so that's
25:59
Speaker 11: a month.
26:00
Speaker 15: That's a time I don't really no one really knows, like, oh,
26:04
Speaker 15: that happened.
26:04
Speaker 11: But then when you just said it was like you
26:08
Speaker 11: did not just say that, but.
26:09
Speaker 14: Yeah, right. Sometimes it's very literal. Pluto is the planet,
26:15
Speaker 14: that's the planet of death and transformation and saying this
26:17
Speaker 14: is the end.
26:18
Speaker 3: I'm watching the two of them, and it's clear something
26:21
Speaker 3: has clicked. In just a few minutes. Gene is transformed
26:24
Speaker 3: from this person who is I guess, willing to give
26:26
Speaker 3: astrology a chance, to someone who's sitting on her hands
26:30
Speaker 3: to stop herself from waving them so excitedly. Despite the screen,
26:35
Speaker 3: there is an intensity between them. Every month or date
26:39
Speaker 3: Janelle throws out seems to provoke this avalanche of memories,
26:42
Speaker 3: and each time Gene is about to let out this
26:44
Speaker 3: rush of words like just let them spill it from
26:47
Speaker 3: her mouth, Janelle smiles like a chest Shire cat and
26:51
Speaker 3: she tells her to hold it in just a little more.
26:54
Speaker 3: Janelle is confident there's power and astrology. She's felt it
26:57
Speaker 3: for decades now, but in this moment, that power is
27:01
Speaker 3: so clear. It's animating every dopamine receptor in Jean's brain
27:06
Speaker 3: and she is buzzing, glowing with electricity.
27:10
Speaker 13: I know, but I have two and a half years
27:11
Speaker 13: to make use of this energy. I have to do
27:13
Speaker 13: it otherwise it's not going to come back for another
27:16
Speaker 13: fourteen years.
27:17
Speaker 7: Right.
27:18
Speaker 14: I don't want to have to waste that time, right exactly.
27:21
Speaker 11: No, I don't.
27:21
Speaker 5: I at seventy four, you don't want to waste a minute.
27:33
Speaker 3: About the gully Gully pay not just a heart of
27:37
Speaker 3: bunny to get you job headed off. Chapter five, A
27:43
Speaker 3: Couch with a View. My sister's a psychologist, a PhD.
27:48
Speaker 3: And we have this line we use about Indians. It's
27:51
Speaker 3: okay to be a psychiatrist, but it's not okay to
27:55
Speaker 3: see a psychiatrist. Years ago, when my wife and I
27:58
Speaker 3: were looking into international adoption from India, the forms indicated
28:02
Speaker 3: that if you'd ever seen a psychiatrist, you'd be disqualified
28:06
Speaker 3: from adopting. I'm ashamed to admit that for years it
28:11
Speaker 3: kept me from seeing a grief counselor. I mean, along
28:14
Speaker 3: with all the other stresses of life. I lost a
28:17
Speaker 3: cousin to a suicide and a best friend to an overdose,
28:21
Speaker 3: and I struggled. I was a shell of myself. The
28:25
Speaker 3: truth is, in those years, I was not a great
28:27
Speaker 3: dad or a great husband, and I could have used
28:30
Speaker 3: the therapy, but I also didn't want to limit our
28:33
Speaker 3: options as potential parents anyway. For Indians, including the Indian government,
28:40
Speaker 3: the stigma is real. So things like religion and astrology
28:45
Speaker 3: they fill the gap and it makes sense right. Astrology
28:49
Speaker 3: allows you to put a symbol on something that's hard
28:51
Speaker 3: to name and to reframe your problems from a different lens.
28:55
Speaker 3: It's therapy for people who just don't want to go
28:58
Speaker 3: to therapy. But what happens when those notions are flipped,
29:01
Speaker 3: Like what if your therapist was secretly powering their sessions,
29:05
Speaker 3: using the stars to amplify their understanding of you, because
29:11
Speaker 3: that's what Ava does.
29:13
Speaker 16: Oh my god, I feel like I'm a little bashful.
29:15
Speaker 11: I'm a licensed therapist.
29:17
Speaker 3: Ava, which is not her real name, is a successful
29:20
Speaker 3: trauma therapist from the Midwest, and she's keenly aware of
29:23
Speaker 3: the baggage that astrology carries.
29:25
Speaker 16: Do I worry if I bring it up people don't
29:28
Speaker 16: take me seriously. Of course, for younger clients, I think
29:31
Speaker 16: it's kind of almost a way of connecting. But yeah,
29:33
Speaker 16: my clients who are older, it's a little bit more
29:37
Speaker 16: of a finesse.
29:40
Speaker 3: So before she dives in with a new client, she
29:42
Speaker 3: floats a few questions to see just how open she
29:44
Speaker 3: can be with them.
29:45
Speaker 16: It's something that I kind of test the waters to
29:48
Speaker 16: see are they into astrology? Is it something they're not
29:50
Speaker 16: at into right? And if they are, it's wonderful because
29:53
Speaker 16: we can fold that into our understanding, like holy shit,
29:57
Speaker 16: like Saturn and Mars are being transited by Saturn. That,
30:01
Speaker 16: from what you're telling me, that makes a lot of sense.
30:04
Speaker 3: Of course, even when they're not into astrology, AVA still
30:07
Speaker 3: keeps an eye on their chart.
30:08
Speaker 16: I still have their birthdays. I can see where their
30:11
Speaker 16: planets are, which isn't to say that that changes how
30:14
Speaker 16: I show up to them. My number one job is
30:17
Speaker 16: to be here with the client therapy, existing in this
30:21
Speaker 16: world of diagnoses and insurance and all these things that
30:25
Speaker 16: are trying to make it be short and get people
30:28
Speaker 16: back to work and make people legible in this really
30:32
Speaker 16: fucked up system. Right, So much of that is not
30:36
Speaker 16: helpful in the actual work of therapy. But I think
30:40
Speaker 16: astrology just it allows me to kind of ground back
30:43
Speaker 16: into the trust of having this big perspective in this
30:46
Speaker 16: small perspective. At the same time.
30:48
Speaker 3: There are so many people who see therapy and astrology
30:51
Speaker 3: at odds with one another, but Ava, she hopes there's
30:56
Speaker 3: new ways about thinking about both because both have the
30:59
Speaker 3: ability to give you agency. I mean, isn't that what
31:02
Speaker 3: we go to therapy for. Isn't that what we want
31:05
Speaker 3: from astrology, to access perspectives big and small, because so
31:10
Speaker 3: much of what we're looking for is someone to tell
31:12
Speaker 3: us what really matters, what we can set aside, and
31:16
Speaker 3: to teach us what to spend our precious time on.
31:20
Speaker 16: This idea of human progress is linear just boggles my mind, Like,
31:24
Speaker 16: what the heck?
31:24
Speaker 11: That makes no sense to me?
31:26
Speaker 16: And with astrology it is not at all. Right, planets
31:30
Speaker 16: are coming into.
31:31
Speaker 3: Places and then going back, and you're like, this is.
31:34
Speaker 16: So frustrating, and I'm back to where I was, and
31:36
Speaker 16: then it moves forward again.
31:38
Speaker 3: De Ava, There's something very human about acknowledging that in
31:42
Speaker 3: the fog of healing, things are often more complicated than
31:46
Speaker 3: just trying to move forward.
31:49
Speaker 16: We are trying to understand things that are beyond comprehension
31:53
Speaker 16: in some ways. Right, how humbling to know that we
31:56
Speaker 16: don't always have to I think that astrology and trauma
31:58
Speaker 16: therapy really hold that capacity in a really beautiful way.
32:20
Speaker 3: Chapter six, Mike Check, Jeane and I sat in her
32:25
Speaker 3: apartment after the reading and we talked for a while.
32:30
Speaker 3: What's spinning in your head? Like, what are you thinking about?
32:33
Speaker 5: First?
32:33
Speaker 4: I feel I don't know if I could could. I
32:35
Speaker 4: feel stoned on my mind.
32:37
Speaker 2: I feel as though I want some acid trip or something.
32:42
Speaker 3: Coming into this reading. I thought we'd devote a good
32:44
Speaker 3: bit of conversation to the salaciousness and fond of hiring
32:47
Speaker 3: an escort, but so much of this, to me felt
32:51
Speaker 3: like Jane just needed to be seen what she needed
32:54
Speaker 3: from the astrologer and what she actually wanted from the
32:57
Speaker 3: escort was the same thing. She needed someone from the
33:02
Speaker 3: outside world to remind her just how much she mattered.
33:06
Speaker 2: I think what was most empowering about this for me
33:09
Speaker 2: was at seventy four and living alone, you often feel
33:14
Speaker 2: very invisible, you know you do. And it's like I
33:17
Speaker 2: say to myself, oh my god, I could die right now.
33:19
Speaker 2: No one's even gonna know, you know, that kind of feeling.
33:23
Speaker 2: And what she did by saying, hey, wait, you know
33:27
Speaker 2: this is what's happening. I mean I could not repeat
33:30
Speaker 2: now to the moon in the house and the but
33:33
Speaker 2: there was an overall sense of you are part of
33:36
Speaker 2: the flow of the energy of the earth, my dear,
33:39
Speaker 2: and you are on a ride, you know, and you
33:43
Speaker 2: have been since you were born, and you will continue.
33:46
Speaker 2: And so by saying you have the power to do that,
33:50
Speaker 2: it was like I'm not invisible, you know, I'm not
33:54
Speaker 2: and I and that was that was very big.
33:58
Speaker 3: I'm envious of Gene because whatever you think of astrology,
34:02
Speaker 3: she got to feel seen and then she had the
34:04
Speaker 3: luxury of time to process it, to decide for herself
34:09
Speaker 3: what she wanted to take out of it and what
34:11
Speaker 3: she wants the rest of her life to be. It's
34:15
Speaker 3: a gift. On May seventh, twenty twenty two, exactly a
34:21
Speaker 3: month after I got a warning about my father's health
34:23
Speaker 3: in the form of a reading, he passed away. I
34:27
Speaker 3: won't tell you the details yet. I'm just not ready,
34:31
Speaker 3: but I will tell you this. That list I made
34:34
Speaker 3: for my dad, we hardly got through it, and all
34:38
Speaker 3: that time I thought I'd been promised, it slipped through
34:43
Speaker 3: my clenched fist. Sitting in Jean's room, listening to this
34:48
Speaker 3: talk of moons and whether this is the close of
34:51
Speaker 3: a chapter or just another middle I am not present.
34:57
Speaker 3: But before I can slip too far away, adjust my hand,
35:02
Speaker 3: she moves the mic I'm holding just a hair away
35:04
Speaker 3: from my face. But that touch, it pulls me back
35:09
Speaker 3: into the moment, and then it makes me smile, because
35:14
Speaker 3: whatever else I've been through, I am so lucky to
35:18
Speaker 3: be here to get to work on projects. I love
35:21
Speaker 3: to meet people like Gene. And as much as my
35:25
Speaker 3: days now will be divided between longing for a past
35:27
Speaker 3: that I cannot have and divining what the future can be,
35:33
Speaker 3: I know she's right when she says things.
35:37
Speaker 4: This is the only moment.
35:38
Speaker 2: This is the only moment, and no other moment will
35:41
Speaker 2: be greater or lessn It's just this is the moment.
36:01
Speaker 3: Next week, we tackle an unsolved mystery in the Reagan
36:04
Speaker 3: White House.
36:04
Speaker 7: President for you continue to allow us. Drama need to
36:07
Speaker 7: play a part of the makeup of your rock it
36:10
Speaker 7: off man.
36:12
Speaker 3: So did Ronald Reagan use astrology to guide his foreign policy? Also,
36:17
Speaker 3: we get distracted watch on Saturday Morning Cartoons. We dig
36:20
Speaker 3: up some televangelist beef, we learn about Boris Yelson's late
36:23
Speaker 3: night cravings, and we find an incredible gem hiding in
36:27
Speaker 3: an old Johnny Carson Cliff.
36:29
Speaker 6: It's eighties week here on Skyline Drive, so be sure
36:32
Speaker 6: to tune in. Thank you so much for listening.
36:52
Speaker 3: Skyline Drive is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeart Podcast.
36:56
Speaker 3: This show is hosted and written by me Mongaish articular.
36:59
Speaker 3: But the show it would be a bad idea sitting
37:01
Speaker 3: in a drawer somewhere if it were not for all
37:03
Speaker 3: these incredible people. Mary Philip Sandy is just the best.
37:07
Speaker 3: She's our supervising producer, and I don't know how she
37:10
Speaker 3: pulled us off with everything else going on. Nietscha Binshahi
37:13
Speaker 3: Senior produced this whole thing and brought the delightful Gene
37:16
Speaker 3: lebec into our world. Mark Lotto is such a mench
37:19
Speaker 3: and story editor who really made this whole story incredible.
37:24
Speaker 3: This episode was also produced and mixed by the wonderful
37:27
Speaker 3: Anna Rubinova. Thank you so much, Anna, with scoring as
37:30
Speaker 3: always from Botany. Check out a SoundCloud the insane music
37:34
Speaker 3: in between.
37:34
Speaker 17: This courtesy of a Zadi Records, Ragender Himanshusuri, Monsoon Ciren.
37:39
Speaker 3: And also Peter Matthew Bauer. This song playing right now
37:43
Speaker 3: is off his beautiful new album Flowers. If you want
37:46
Speaker 3: to hear all of this music, we linked to a
37:48
Speaker 3: mixtape in the show notes. Oh my gosh, the fifties
37:50
Speaker 3: narration so funny, right that was Adam Bozar. Thank you
37:54
Speaker 3: so much, Adam for doing that Rosenberg section and making
37:58
Speaker 3: me laugh so hard. Also, ology descriptions come from astrology
38:01
Speaker 3: dot Com. Jeene's story about falling in love is from
38:05
Speaker 3: the Moth. Go download their wonderful show immediately. Additional production
38:09
Speaker 3: and research support from the wonderful through Chivarrao, Lizzie Jacobs,
38:14
Speaker 3: who is my wife and my rock, my superstar aunt,
38:17
Speaker 3: somanaka the Womanuka Bukshi, and my cousin Arjinbucschi who helped
38:22
Speaker 3: me out of a giant pickle. This show is executive
38:25
Speaker 3: produced from iHeart by my good pals Nikki Mutour and
38:28
Speaker 3: Katrina Norvel. Also got to thank my partners from Kaleidoscope
38:32
Speaker 3: just the best team Oswolshen Kate Osborne Costas Linos and
38:36
Speaker 3: the super dynamic Vahini Shori who made the crazy sweet
38:40
Speaker 3: Kalajah my family on instaks viny my mom loved it special.
38:45
Speaker 3: Thanks to all the kiddos who bore with us through
38:47
Speaker 3: this production. All my friends at iHeart, Shanta and Sara,
38:50
Speaker 3: my family everywhere, my pal Holly Fry who read this
38:54
Speaker 3: episode's warning. If you haven't listened to stuff you missed
38:57
Speaker 3: in the history class.
38:58
Speaker 17: You're missing out, or you can check out her excellent
39:01
Speaker 17: podcast Criminalia go down her boat immediately. And just one
39:05
Speaker 17: last thank you as always to my Amma and my
39:09
Speaker 17: dad Lalita Enimation Ticular, who I thank my lucky stars for.
39:15
Speaker 6: Thank you all for listening.
39:19
Speaker 4: That's your friends, It's where you grew up. Oh they're
39:26
Speaker 4: not your friends, It's where you grew up.